


just like everybody else does

by purple_cube



Category: Eleanor & Park - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-06
Updated: 2014-04-06
Packaged: 2018-01-18 10:14:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1424755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purple_cube/pseuds/purple_cube
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eleanor worried that she had waited too long. Park told her she hadn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	just like everybody else does

 

**Park**

_I miss you._

Just three words, but enough to lighten the heavy cloud that hovered over him for so long. He felt lighter in his head, lighter in his shoulders, lighter in his feet as he practically bounced into the kitchen, still dressed in his tuxedo pants and T-shirt from the night before.

“Impala’s got a full tank,” his dad said, not even looking up from his newspaper.

That stopped him in tracks. “What?”

This time, he did look up, a small but wry smile gracing his lips. “You’re gonna go and see her, aren’t you? Well, it’s Saturday, you’ve got a full tank of gas, and if you ask nicely, I’ll even give you a little spending money.”

He hadn’t been thinking of seeing her. But now that the thought is front and center in his mind, should he?

Park absently pulled out a chair and slumped into it. “She won’t want to see me.”

“She got in touch, didn’t she? How long’s it been, a year?”

“Nearly.”

“She wouldn’t have sent anything if she wasn’t still thinking of you.”

“That’s not the same as wanting to see me.”

His dad got up, folding the newspaper and dropping it onto the table with a sharp thwack. “Didn’t think you’d give up so easily.”

*

He traded in the tuxedo pants for denim jeans, but decided to keep the T-shirt. It suited him, the person that he was now, and she deserved to know that.

He had just stepped outside when he remembered the box under his bed, and ran back to his room to retrieve it.

*

Her mom answered the door. She regarded him blankly.

He asked for Eleanor, her name feeling a little weird on her lips after so long. Another figure hovered into his view – one of the strawberry-blond kids that he remembered from the playground. _Ben._

“It’s her boyfriend,“ the kid said quietly.

The mother’s eyes widened as she regarded Park with a newly-found recognition. “You’d better come in.”

*

“You told your mom about me?”

She had appeared within moments of Ben racing up the stairs, more resigned than shocked to see him sat on her uncle’s couch. Her mom had shuffled the rest of the family into the kitchen, and presumably into the back yard, glancing back at them one final time before the door swung shut on her.

“Had to. Kinda hard to keep you a secret when you were single-handedly keeping the postal service in business.”

“That reminds me. I have something in the car that I need to leave with you.”

She started to shake her head, but he interrupted whatever thought she was about to voice. “It’s yours. I’m not taking it home with me.”

*

Two glasses of soda and a handful of biscuits passed his lips before the sentence that he came here to speak made it through. “Why those words?”

“You said them to me so many times,” she replied softly. “It only seemed right that you got to hear them from me, just once.”

“Just once?”

She shrugged. “I didn’t expect you to come up here. Well, I kind of did,” she added after a moment. “But I was hoping you wouldn’t.”

“I almost didn’t,” he admitted. “But then I figured, what’s the worst that could happen? You could just go back to ignoring me.”

He couldn’t bring himself to look at her, but he didn’t miss the sharp intake of breath. “That wasn’t the first postcard I thought of sending.”

“What did the first one say?”

“ _See, I’ve already waited too long, and all my hope is gone._ ”

The melody burst to life inside his head, and before he knew it, they were both humming along to the first song he had ever played to her.

*

“You should leave soon if you want to get home before it gets dark.”

“I’m going to stay.”

He saw the panic in her eyes, and laughed. It felt weird, laughing at her again, with her again. “I mean, I can sleep in the car and drive back to Omaha in the morning. I just need to call my dad and let him know.”

His dad just huffed and told him _not to get anyone pregnant._

*

In the morning, he returned the pillow and comforter that Eleanor’s aunt had insisted that he take, despite the mild weather. He said his goodbyes as politely as he could, then waited for Eleanor to follow him outside.

“I have that thing for you.”

The shoebox was still lying on the passenger seat. He waited for her to take it from his hands before explaining. “I kept on writing to you, but stopped sending the letters. This is all the stuff I didn’t send.”

“I can’t take it.”

“It’s yours.”

“I haven’t read the others.”

“Maybe one day you will.”

*

He sent her another postcard from that same truck stop on the way home.

_I am human and I need to be loved. Just like everybody else does._

*

**Eleanor**

“Have you been applying to colleges?”

She hesitated. “Maybe.”

She had called him after that first visit, just to make sure that he had made it home. It’s what she would have done the first time, if she hadn’t already promised herself that she would let him go. He had started to tell her about his new punk phase, and before she knew it, he was playing his latest tape to her over the phone. When he had asked her to call again the following weekend, all she could say was _okay_.

“Come on, Eleanor. Where have you applied? You can trust me.”

“No, I can’t. I can’t trust you not to come after me.”

“I’m not Freddy Krueger.”

“You’re worse,” she said, but he could surely hear the smile in her voice.

“Fine, let me at least tell you where I’ve applied.”

He reeled off his list, and it didn’t surprise her to hear two familiar names. Well, three if you counted the University of Nebraska, which she didn’t. That one, she was sure, was only to appease his mother.

“You seem keen on Minnesota,” she remarked drily.

“I’ve visited a couple of times now,” he responded lightly. “Seems like a nice place. Photogenic, too. I’ve got a great postcard from there up on my wall.”

*

“Have you been seeing anyone?”

It had been two months, and their phone conversations hadn’t gotten any more personal than _how’s your family doing?_ She felt like they were in a safe enough zone to be able to ask this.

He sounded nervous when he did finally reply. “What?”

“It’s okay if you were. If you _are_ ,” she added. “I was, for a while.”

“Oh.”

She twirled the telephone cord in her hand while she waited for his answer.

“I took someone to Prom. And I kissed her. But…it didn’t go anywhere.”

“Why not?”

“It felt too weird with her.”

“Oh.”

“Why did it end for you?”

_He wasn’t you._ “We just weren’t a good fit.”

*

Six months after he left her the shoebox, she laid out all of the letters and packages on her bed, in chronological order. One by one, she opened them, eventually setting up a bag to collect the packaging waste.

It took her one weekend, a box of Kleenex and what Maisie called _a bucketful of tears_ to get through it all.

When she called Park the following weekend, she couldn’t bring herself to tell him that she had finally let him back in.

Instead, she asked him to play music to her.

*

She accepted a place at a local college, just as Park had suspected. She wanted to keep an eye on her mother now that they were no longer living with her uncle and aunt.

And Park came to Minnesota, just as she had suspected. They were both a little predictable like that.

*

They met every Saturday morning for coffee. It was a new routine for their new lives – Park even referred to the coffee shop as “the bus”. _See you on the bus this Saturday. I’ll be waiting on our usual bench._

When he finally kissed her again, she asked that he told her she was his girlfriend before telling the entire school this time.

“You’re my girlfriend,” he said softly. Then he grinned widely before turning to the nearest table and tapping its occupant on the shoulder. “She’s my girlfriend.”

The man gave them both an amused smile before nodding and turning back to his partner.

And then Park got up and visited _every_ table in the coffeehouse. Eleanor buried her head in her hands once he was far enough away to have to point her out to his audience. Thank all the deities in the universe that it was early and the place was only half full.

“I’m leaving you now,” she told him when he finally returned.

He waited for her to rise halfheartedly before reaching across to grab her hand. “I’m never letting you go again.”

 


End file.
